Tag: Cypherpunks

The popularity and unprecedented growth of Bitcoin cannot be denied despite all the bad publicity it got during the past few years. It is true that Bitcoin …

The popularity and unprecedented growth of Bitcoin cannot be denied despite all the bad publicity it got during the past few years. It is true that Bitcoin did not get off to a great start and faced many challenges. However, the cryptocurrency found its place among the most successful and swiftly spreading technologies.

The first ever Bitcoin transaction happened on the 12th of January 2009, between Satoshi Nakamoto and Hal Finney in which Nakamoto sent Finney a mere ten Bitcoins. Nakamoto is the mysterious founder of Bitcoin.

One of the most fascinating events regarding Bitcoin cryptocurrency took place when Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer by profession and Bitcoin enthusiast, purchased two pizzas for ten thousand Bitcoins, worth some twenty-five dollars at the time. Had he kept this amount, he would have been able to cash around seventy million dollars with the cryptocurrency market boom in 2017.

There are many Cryptomillionares today who purchase jets, cars, and property with Bitcoins but the first such huge transaction was made by a car enthusiast based in Florida, who in December 2013, bought a Tesla Model S in Bitcoins.

The largest transaction made using Bitcoin in 2013, was worth over one hundred and forty-nine million dollars, when the market value of a Bitcoin was equal to seven hundred and twenty-nine dollars. There is no evidence or information about what this transaction was in fact for, nor is it known where the receiver used the transferred Bitcoins.

The first transaction that took place between co-peers in space by Genesis mining, a Bitcoin cloud mining firm, left the world gob-smacked. This idea was coined as an outreach strategy, to promote Bitcoin throughout the world.

These are not the only interesting accounts of Bitcoin transactions that will go down as historical events and demonstrate just how astounding this digital currency technology is.

As we said before, he has 980,000 BTC, but he also has the same amount of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV), and Bitcoin Gold (BTG), among …

Satoshi Nakamoto is one of the most popular figures in the crypto space, even when nobody knows who he really is. He is the creator of Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency in the market.

When he created Bitcoin, he left a large sum of Bitcoin for himself, which some estimate that could be close to 980,000 Bitcoins. But how much money in virtual currencies does Satoshi Nakamoto really have?

Is Satoshi The Richest Individual In The World?

As we said before, he has 980,000 BTC, but he also has the same amount of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV), and Bitcoin Gold (BTG), among others. Nevertheless, after 10 years since Bitcoin’s launch, nobody knows who he really is.

Satoshi Nakamoto has different cryptocurrency wallets. However, one that we know it’s his wallet is this one: 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

There are several individuals that are suspected to be Satoshi Nakamoto. One of them is Hal Finney, a cypherpunk that was also involved in cryptography before working on Bitcoin. He was one of the individuals on the mailing list that received Bitcoin’s whitepaper. He has also sent several messages to Satoshi to discuss several issues and improve Bitcoin.

Satoshi Nakamoto has also selected him to receive the first-ever Bitcoin transaction in the space, that was sent by Satoshi himself. Hal passed away back in August 2014 due to Low Gehrig’s disease.

Another possible Bitcoin creator is Nick Szabo, also a cryptographer and cypherpunk as Hal Finney. Before Bitcoin, Szabo published a platform called “BitGold,” an e-currency, with some technical limitations, that was similar in some ways to Bitcoin. There are some enthusiasts that believe that Szabo launched Bitcoin a few years later.

Adam Back is another possibility. He started studying computers and cryptography and developed the hashcash concept in 1997. This was an early application of Proof of Work (PoW), which allows users to link Mr. Back with Nakamoto.

Back is currently working as the CEO of Blockstream, a company that produces blockchain solutions for institutions and companies. The firm provides funds to Bitcoin core developers as well.

The reason why Satoshi Nakamoto has so many Bitcoin is due to the fact he was the first Bitcoin miner and mined for a large period of time. At that time, the block reward was capped at 50 BTC, while now, each block gives a reward of 12.5 BTC. In the near future, Bitcoin is going to experience a new halvening that will reduce the new issuance of Bitcoin to 6.25 BTC per block.

There are different reasons why Satoshi Nakamoto does not want to spend his Bitcoin. Indeed, since 2011, he stopped moving them. Satoshi Nakamoto could just have passed away and this is the reason why he is not using his BTC. Maybe, he is not using them because he is afraid of a panic reaction or because he might not want to spend them too early.

At the time Bitcoin was being traded close to $20,000, he had a net worth of $21 billion, becoming one of the richest individuals alive. In the future, if the market starts a new bull run, he could have even a larger sum of money.

Until now, there are no clues regarding Satoshi Nakamoto or who he really is. However, he had the possibility to change the world and create a virtual currency that is growing day after day.

‘We Wouldn’t Be Here Without You’

Wuille, whom many regard as instrumental in Bitcoin’s success, saw considerable positive feedback as he ‘took’ the Lightning Network (LN) Torch — a gesture which has gained significant prestige since it launched in January.

A transaction relay at its heart, Lightning Torch involves ‘passing around’ a Bitcoin transaction using the Lightning Network, with each custodian adding a nominal sum of 10,000 satoshis ($0.387) before forwarding it elsewhere.

The project has become a symbol of the borderless and increasingly easy-to-use Bitcoin payment platform, and the LN Torch has now gone around the world — to countries including the US and, more recently, Iran.

“Honored to have you participating Pieter! Thanks for all you have done. We wouldn’t be here without you,” the Torch’s initiator, Twitter user hodlonaut, commented after Wuille confirmed he had received and forwarded the transaction.

According to official monitoring resource TakeTheTorch, Wuille was the 231st custodian — having received the Torch from Bitcoin mining operator SlushPool.

Lightning Torch’s Prestigious Guest List

Previous participants include HashCash creator and Blockstream CEO Adam Back, as well as non-Bitcoin figures such as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. The latter gave both Bitcoin and Lightning Network a conspicuous publicity boost in February when, along with participating in the Torch, he signaled that LN micropayments would be launching on his payments company, Square.

“We would love to make [Bitcoin] as fast and efficient and transactional as possible, and that includes looking at our seller base and register,” he said at the time. “It’s not an ‘if;’ it’s more of a ‘when.’”

An ongoing lobbying effort also remains underway to involve Tesla founder Elon Musk in Lightning Torch. The mogul has thus far not given any public comment on the idea.

Lightning, meanwhile, continues to grow to support more funds than ever, with an overall capacity of 750 BTC ($2.89 million) at press time — a monthly increase of 18 percent.

What do you think about Pieter Wuille participating in Lightning Torch? Let us know in the comments below!

It is true; the world is becoming an extremely strange place to live in with the passage of time. Satoshi Nakamoto would have never thought ten years ago when Bitcoin was invented, that it will be mined in college campuses in the near future.

A new report presented by Austin McBride of CISCO, at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week, claims that 22% of all crypto mining traffic comes from college campuses. This is a staggering statistic considering how a college campus is not a usual setting for crypto mining.

Another important observation that surfaced in the report was that 62% of all crypto mining traffic can be credited to the US, which is a major shift from the previous year’s Asian dominance over the crypto mining business. Umbrella, a product by CISCO, is behind this extensive research carried out on the crypto mining market.

Umbrella found out during their research, that energy/utilities companies and college campuses are the top two areas which contribute to the most crypto mining traffic. On the context of college campuses becoming a hotbed for crypto mining, McBride says:

“You leave [the mining rig] running in your dorm room for four years, you walk out of college with a big chunk of change. So you can run your mining rig in your dorm or school library and not worry about those costs eating into your mining profitability.”

This indicates clearly that a lot of college students are running their own mining rigs. The students living in dorms don’t have to pay their energy bills since those are paid by the administration. It is then, a supremely profitable activity for these college kids.

McBride also adds:

“Some of the systems that run our grids and other utilities are purpose build and do not get software and hardware updates as frequently as a Mac or PC would. So, there is more of a potential for vulnerabilities being unpatched for some time and this makes it an attractive target.”

Billionaire and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently revealed his fascination for Bitcoin after studying its “beautiful” white paper. He iterated that Bitcoin and blockchain is the future of world economics and will bring in a new technological revolution.

Dorsey, who is also the CEO mobile payments company Square, expressed his views on the Tales from the Crypt podcast hosted by Marty Bent. On the podcast, Dorsey also spilled some private moments of his journey to the top, such as how he first got interested in cryptography as a kid back in St Louis, Missouri.

“We had a super-active hacker culture there,” he recalled.

Dorsey revealed that he was a part of cypherpunk mailing list and it is through that channel that he received the brilliantly-drafted Bitcoin whitepaper sent by the mysterious Bitcoin creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Dorsey admitted that Nakamoto’s explanation of the cryptocurrency’s mechanics blew his mind.

“Read it, thought it was beautiful. I think it was one of the most seminal works in the past 20 years in computer science.”

Dorsey also said that while he admired the idea ofBbitcoin, he didn’t become a part of it until January 2017. It all began when he attended the Cash App Hack Week. In that event, he collaborated with an engineer named Mike Brock and created a payment mechanism using the cryptocurrency.

“I wanted to figure out if we could store Bitcoin and then go across the street — and using our Apple Pay card — be able to spend that Bitcoin to buy a cup of coffee. The following week, I actually bought coffee with it, which was really cool.”

Dorsey explained how his hands-on interaction with the technology helped him realize that “there was so much potential” in Bitcoin and its applications.